Holland, Mich. Pastor Rafael Cruz made two campaign stops in the Holland area Friday, July 31, as a part of his speaking tour in support of his son, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — one of 17 Republican presidential hopefuls. Rafael Cruz held court over breakfast at the Trestle Stop in Hamilton before moving to the Southside Inn on 35th Street in Holland from 10-11 a.m. Born in Cuba, Rafael Cruz legally immigrated to the U.S. as a young man and worked to put himself through engineering school at the University of Texas. He has been actively speaking and campaigning for...

BIRCH RUN, MI — The Michigan Democratic Party is organizing a protest outside the Saginaw County venue where GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump will speak on Tuesday, Aug. 11. The Facebook page for the protest, "Rally Against Donald Trump," was created on July 30 by the Michigan Democratic Party. "We cannot let Trump's anti-immigrant, anti-veteran beliefs be welcome anywhere in our state," the event page states. A poster for the protest references the current GOP frontrunner's "anti-immigrant, anti-veteran statements." Trump will be the keynote speaker at a Lincoln Day event, a fundraiser for the Republican Party in Saginaw and Genesee...

Michigan Officer Shells Out $35,000 For Open Carry Stop Posted by Bob Owens on July 30, 2015 at 2:03 pm ď‚‚ Somehow, I donÂ’t think Flint Township Police will be stopping people who open carry firearms any time soon unless they have a darn good reason. A man who claimed he was wrongfully arrested on Christmas Eve while legally open-carrying his pistol has reached a $35,000 settlement with the officer who stopped him, according to the manÂ’s attorney. John David McMorris reached the agreement Tuesday, July 28, after he sued Flint Township Police and Sgt. Russell Fries following his Dec....

Breaking News: FBI Searches Wooded Area for Hoffa By Cheryl Chodun Web produced by Seth Myers May 17, 2006 A group of FBI investigators is searching a wooded area in the vicinity of Milford and Wixom in connection with the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters’ leader Jimmy Hoffa. Investigators have cordoned off a section of woods where the bones of the long-missing union official may lie. Hoffa was last seen at the Mocas Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Township in July 1975. Speculation regarding his whereabouts – or his body’s whereabouts – certainly comes and goes. Recently, a mob hitman named...

Apparently you can serve two masters. In Montreal, QB Canada Marvin Elkind was a small-time Jewish hood working for the Italian Mafia who later became a police informant, and the 77-year-old's double life is the subject of the new book The Weasel by Adrian Humphreys as reported by Rene Bruemmer for The Gazette. Elkind got his underworld start at the age of 18 as the driver for Jimmy Hoffa whom he chauffeured for four years, and he claims to know where the infamous Teamsters boss is buried as reported by Joe O'Connor for the National Post: "' have it on...

The disappearance of Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa remains one of America’s most enduring mysteries. But now, nearly four decades after Hoffa vanished, his driver has claimed he knows where he is buried – and how he got there. Marvin Elkind said Hoffa was killed by a mob enforcer and buried in the foundations of the towering General Motors’ HQ in Detroit, Michigan. ‘It was his own people who did it,’ Mr Elkind said in excerpts of a new book published in the New York Post, adding Mafia member Tony Jack insinuated he was responsible.

On July 30, 1975, former Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa stood outside the Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, impatiently scanning the parking lot. The man who had made the Teamsters the most formidable labor union in the country was already angry. It was quarter after two in the afternoon, and the men he was supposed to be meeting for lunch hadn’t arrived yet. Hoffa was a stickler for punctuality, and it was his understanding that they were to meet at 2:00. Wearing a dark blue short-sleeve shirt, blue pants, white socks, and black Gucci loafers, Hoffa walked...

DETROIT - Blood found on the floor of a Detroit home is not that of Jimmy Hoffa, investigators said Monday, ruling out what had looked like one of the most promising recent leads in the disappearance of the Teamsters boss 30 years ago. Authorities had ripped up floorboards last May at a house where Delaware Teamsters official Frank Sheeran said he shot Hoffa to death. Police in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Township received a report from the FBI crime lab Monday concluding that human blood from a male was on the floorboards but that the blood was not Hoffa's....

New Details Emerge in Hoffa Case BY EDWARD LEWIS TIMES-SHAMROCK NEWS WRITER 03/19/2004 Details of a written confession by a man who claims to have had a role in the 1975 murder of Jimmy Hoffa shed light on Northeastern Pennsylvania mob boss Russell Bufalino's underworld involvement. The three-page confession by Frank Sheeran, 83, was allegedly written in November, about a month before he died in a Chester County nursing home. Highlights of the deathbed confession, which is not corroborated, were publicized earlier this week by the Philadelphia Daily News. The bottom of each page of the confession bears Mr. Sheeran's...

The book I Heard You Paint Houses came out in 2003, so it’s been gathering some dust on a number of bookshelves around the country for quite some time. The book’s title, according to Amazon, comes from the first words infamous Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors. The book is essentially the deathbed biography of one-time Delaware Teamster boss and mob hit-man Frank Sheeran and truly is a fascinating read.

DETROIT — Authorities in Detroit searched a home Friday looking for clues into the greatest murder mystery in U.S. history — what really happened to Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa (search). After one man confessed to killing Hoffa in 1975 at a Detroit home and following a Fox News investigation determined traces of blood in the house, Oakland County, Mich., investigators ripped up floorboards to do more analysis. An undetermined amount of material was taken away. Frank Sheeran (search) — nicknamed "the Irishman' — was one of the handful of the FBI's suspects into Hoffa's murder. Sheeran was a local Teamsters...

Hot on the Hoffa trail Taylor cop thinks he has the answer to 1975 vanishing of union leader July 1, 2007 BY JOEL THURTELL FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER Jimmy Hoffa's last car ride took less than two minutes. On July 30, 1975, he rode one long block south from a two-story house at 17841 Beaverland in Detroit's tough Brightmoor neighborhood and turned right -- west -- on Grand River Ave. He passed the greens of William Rogell Golf Course and a scenic footbridge, crossed the woodsy Rouge River, cruised past the brown brick Redford Granite Co. building and the Mt....

While taking place at the state level, this one could be very big for the Right to Work movement. The state supreme court in Michigan has dealt a double blow to the unions and the state government apparatus which is essentially owned by them. The Justices ruled yesterday that not only is Right to Work the law of the land for private industry, but it applies to public sector workers as well, and they canâ€™t be forced to participate in unions against their wishes. (Detroit Free Press) The Michigan Supreme Court, in an opinion that has the effect of...

WASHINGTON — Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan and the longest-serving Jewish member now in the House, said Tuesday that he would support the Iran nuclear accord, lending a hefty voice of approval in a chamber deeply skeptical of the deal. “Israel’s security has and always will be of critical importance to me and our country,” Mr. Levin said in a lengthy statement explaining his decision. “I believe that Israel, the region and the world are far more secure if Iran does not move toward possession of a nuclear weapon. I believe the agreement is the best way to...

A devil-worshipping group calling itself the Satanic Temple has been working to raise funds to promote abortion-on-demand and to counter legal efforts such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and 20-week abortion bans. A highly publicized ceremonial unveiling of the satanic figure of Baphomet in Detroit Saturday, an event billed as the “largest public satanic ceremony in history,” sold $25 and $75 tickets, the proceeds of which will be used to support the reproductive rights legal action fund, according to a Temple spokeswoman. The cult has also set up a donation website with Indiegogo “to challenge arbitrary, insulting abortion...

NORVELL TWP, MI -- Rick Briggs has always been involved in charity work to help veterans, but when his son came back from Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder, he knew more needed to be done for veterans. "A lot of guys put a gun in their mouth because they don't have hope, they don't have a purpose," Briggs said. "They need both hope and purpose to move forward." So, Briggs partnered with other volunteers to bring a shared dream to life. The 137-acre campsite of Camp Liberty, once finished, will feature a welcome center able to house a large family...

The Satanic Temple of DetroitÂ threw off protesters of their unveiling of a demonic statue by leaking word that the event would take place in one place but holding it in another. In addition, in an apparent attempt to weed out Christian moles who might disrupt the presentation of the statue, the Satanic Temple required everyone who had a ticket (for which they paid $25 and up) to sign a quasi-legal document in which they agreed to Â“transferÂ” their soul to Satan.â€‹ Â“I agree that by signing this document under any name, given or adopted, actual or pseudonymous, I am...

DETROIT -- Fiat Chrysler must offer to buy back from customers hundreds of thousands of Ram pickup trucks and other vehicles -- the biggest such action in U.S. history -- as part of a costly deal with safety regulators to settle legal problems in about two dozen recalls. The Italian-American automaker also faces a record civil fine of up to $105 million. In addition, owners of more than a million older Jeeps with vulnerable rear-mounted gas tanks will be able to trade them in or be paid by Chrysler to have the vehicles repaired. ~SNIP~ Vehicles eligible for buy-back offer...

Joseph Rivers, an aspiring artist from Michigan, had his dreams shattered by federal agents. On a train to California, where he was going to start a video production business, he had his $16,000 in life savings seized by the Drug Enforcement Agency under the mere claimed suspicion that it was going to be used as drug money. A hunch or suspicion is enough for some law enforcement agents to seize someone's property and hold it until they prove themselves innocent. As the Albuquerque Journal, which first reported Rivers' case, quoted the DEA agent in charge: "We don't have to prove...

After weeks of speculation and protests by Christian leaders in Detroit, the unthinkable took place.Just after 11p.m. on July 25, a satanic organization unveiled a 9-foot statue of the goat-headed Baphomet, a pagan symbol of Lucifer. The 1-ton statue features two young children looking up adoringly at the devil.Leaders of the Satanic Temple have been saying for weeks they planned to unveil the statue somewhere in Detroit and leave it there temporarily before moving it to Arkansas, where they plan to set it beside the Ten Commandments at the State Capitol. This is the same statue they attempted to erect...

A group is planning to unveil an 8-foot-tall bronze statue featuring a goat-headed Satan in Detroit during a gathering that’s being billed as the “largest public satanic ceremony in history.” The Satanic Temple has said Saturday’s private event will be open only to people with tickets, $25 each. Invitations to “The Unveiling” summoned guests to prepare for “a night of chaos, noise, and debauchery… Come dance with the Devil and experience history in the making.” The event location is not being announced publicly and is known only to those with tickets.

Most of America thinks of Detroit as Motown, or the Motor City, and Ann Arbor as the home of the storied Big Ten football program and world-class medical research facilities of the University of Michigan.Illegal immigrants look at those towns differently. They see Detroit and Ann Arbor as Â“sanctuary cities,Â” communities where local law enforcement has a policy of not cooperating with federal immigration agents.Michigan Republicans, led by state Senate Majority Floor Leader Mike Kowall, want to erase the concept of Â“sanctuary citiesÂ” from the lexicon of municipal leaders in the state.Â“I am strongly opposed to any Michigan cities...

An Ypsilanti pastor called upon parents Thursday to be a part of the solution in decreasing violence in the city and township. Alex Easley, pastor of City of Hope Ministries in Ypsilanti, spoke on behalf of clergy across Washtenaw County at a press conference about rising gang violence in Ypsilanti on Thursday, July 23. "Parents, I call you out today. Take care of your children and then you don't need state funding to help you raise your kids," he said. At the press conference, law enforcement officials laid out a plan of temporary increased patrols and partnerships with the Washtenaw...

LAKE MICHIGAN — It was 3:30 a.m., and Jeff Voss was tired. Voss, a tool and die shop owner when he's not diving on shipwrecks, had been at the wheel since midnight, kept awake by Red Bull and the monotonous duty of keeping the boat on course while simultaneously monitoring the sonar. Somewhere below, a phantom lay waiting. Voss and his fellow wreck sleuths had been patiently combing a 10-square-mile grid of Lake Michigan off Muskegon for the past three days in a modified 25-foot Bayliner; "mowing the lawn" with side-scan sonar in search of a lost propeller steamer that...

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder confirmed a state review team's finding that Wayne County is operating under a financial emergency. County leaders have until 5 p.m. July 29 to request a hearing on the governor's determination. Should a hearing be requested, it will be held at 10 a.m. July 30, in Lansing, before the state treasurer or his designee. Following the hearing (or if no hearing is requested by the county), the governor can either confirm or revoke his determination that a financial emergency exists. The Wayne County Commission then can choose one of four options to deal with this financial...

In a recent story in MLive, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation is given credit for "retaining" 40,200 jobs in Michigan when it awarded two MEGA tax credits to the Ford Motor Company. The story reports: "… in the end the two credits were supposed to retain up to 40,200 jobs.” ForTheRecord says: At the time of the agreement in 2010, the MEDC reported that Ford had 36,720 employees in Michigan. Ford Motor Co. estimates there are 40,000 employees in Michigan currently. That means the MEDC is taking credit for retaining every job in the Ford Motor Company. Would the company...

Aldi and Lidl, Germany’s toughest discount food retailers, are invading the US. Both operate small, efficient no frill self serve supermarkets with a strong non-food assortment, and very low prices. Both have permanently changed the competitive landscape wherever they have gone. Lidl is about to open its U.S. headquarter in Arlington, Virginia and a distribution center in Alamance County, North Carolina. These are early steps in its U.S. invasion by this formidable company that operates about 11,000 stores in 26 countries throughout Europe. I am told that the company has already selected 80 locations in the Greater Washington, D.C. area...

State Rep. Jim Townsend wants to amend Michigan’s constitution to allow a graduated state income tax, and raise the maximum rate to 10 percent. This would hurt the state as a whole, including those he wants to help. The prosperity of this and every other state is determined by its rate of economic growth. And for growth, what matters is not the average tax rate but the marginal tax rate. That is, the amount of extra taxes an individual must pay on his or her next dollar of income. The higher the marginal rate the less incentive a person has...

Hackers took control of a car and crashed it into a ditch by remotely breaking into its systems from 10 miles away whilst sitting on their sofa. In the first such breach of its kind security experts cut out the engine and applied the brakes on the Jeep Cherokee, sending it into a spin. The US hackers said they used just a laptop and mobile phone to access the Jeep’s on-board systems via its wireless Internet connection. They claim that more than 470,000 cars made by Fiat Chrysler could be at risk of being attacked by similar means - including...

In the small rural city that I live in the UP of Michigan the City Manager walked into his office on July 13, submitted his letter of resignation effective immediately, turned his keys in and walked out the door. Now the proverbial piece of excrement wants to have the acceptance of his resignation rescinded. The city council has already appointed a interim city manager and the person is doing the job, suddenly the excrement wants his job back. the city manager's history throughout all of Michigan uper and lower peninsula is that he has been terminated from eight other positions

An openly gay United Methodist pastor said his "I Dos" in front of more than 30 clergy members and 100 guests Friday, days after he was forced to resign for having a partner.The Rev. Benjamin Hutchison married his partner, Monty Hutchison, in a ceremony on the steps of the historic Cass County Courthouse.Hutchison called it a joyous occasion."Walking around the courthouse and seeing all the support, seeing all clergy there gathered standing there saying that they support it, they're not opposed to it, it really was a blessing today."Hutchison, 31, resigned earlier this week from his position as senior pastor...

DETROIT (AP) — Police in Detroit are searching for men who allegedly robbed two young couples at gunpoint in separate attacks two hours apart and gang-raped the women while forcing the male victims to watch.

Detroit police are searching for suspects in two sexual assaults Thursday night. Both happened in the same area on Detroit's west side. A man and woman, both in their early twenties, were walking near West McNichols, three blocks east of Wyoming on Detroit's west side when they were confronted by six men with bad intentions. Police say the couple was dragged around the back of a nearby building, stripped of their clothes, robbed, and the woman sexually assaulted. A short time later, two men struck again, pulling the same tactic with another young couple. Forcing the male companion to watch...

Republican spoiler Donald Trump will bring his firebrand campaign to southeast Michigan next month as the keynote speaker at a party fundraiser for two southeast Michigan counties. Campaigning in Iowa Saturday, the flamboyant businessman offered a sample of what Republicans in Genesee and Saginaw counties might expect on Aug. 11. There, he made withering remarks about Arizona Sen. John McCain’s war record that ignited another firestorm of criticism against McCain, who is leading a crowded GOP in polls. http://patch.com/michigan/birmingham/gop-spoiler-trump-bring-firebrand-campaign-michigan-0

From CBS Detroit: The hunt is on for a group of men in Detroit who allegedly attacked two couples while they were walking down the street, forcing the male victim to watch as his female companion is gang raped.The first incident unfolded around 11:30 p.m. Thursday in a well-lit area near McNichols Road and Birwood Street. The alleged attack happened in a northwest neighborhood just blocks away from Marygrove College.

FULL TITLE: Fmr. Dem. Gov. Granholm, Who Vetoed Partial Birth Abortion Bans Twice, Caught Lying on Camera About Law Former Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D-MI) had a very liberal record during her tenure, twice vetoing a ban on partial birth abortions. A recent hidden camera investigation caught Granholm misrepresenting the true nature of Michigan’s abortion laws, saying that they were more restrictive than they actually are in what appears to be an effort to downplay the horrors of late term abortions. The video was taken by a citizen journalist who wishes to remain anonymous and has provided the video exclusively to...

Black activists got angry when the Detroit Police Chief James Craig called the people responsible for shooting 12 people on a playground killing one of them urban terrorists. They complained about the insult and want him to apologize. Craig refused to back down and stuck to his guns. Craig said quite bluntly: “You will allow this to continue if you do nothing. It must stop now.” That’s when the president of the Detroit National Action Network (founded by Al Sharpton) Rev. Charles Williams took umbrage to Craig’s assertions that these thugs are urban terrorists: “We want to make it...

An illegal immigrant from Mexico is being held in the Van Buren County Jail for allegedly kidnapping a 13-year-old Florida girl and sexually assaulting her at a home in Hartford. 23-year-old Aurelio Hernandez-Gomez was arraigned over the weekend, and also faces extradition to Florida on the kidnapping charge. The teen will soon be reunited with her family in Florida according to the Van Buren County Sheriff’s Department. She was reported missing on July 7 from Polk County. She was recovered at the same home where police arrested Hernandez-Gomez in the 66-thousand block of 48th Avenue. Child Protective Services took...

There are 314,000 fewer people in Michigan collecting unemployment benefits than six years ago, a nearly 90 percent decline. Some see this as another indicator of the state’s economic rebound. There were 363,212 people collecting unemployment as of Jan. 24, 2009. That number dropped to 49,060 as of June 20, 2015, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. “Michigan’s growing economy is putting people back to work,” said James Hohman, the assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. “Fewer people on unemployment insurance is one of the added benefits.” From 2006 to 2010, Michigan led...

Illinois and Michigan have traded places on two key metrics for measuring prosperity and opportunity, and both changes are embarrassing for the Land of Lincoln. The first major change came in October 2014, when Michigan surpassed Illinois for total factory jobs. Michigan now has 25,000 more factory jobs than Illinois even though the Wolverine State’s economy is only three-quarters the size of Illinois’. Now, new data from the Department of Human Services shows the embarrassing role reversal has come full turn. In March of this year, Illinois bumped off Michigan to become the Midwest’s No. 1 user of the Supplemental...

<p>An 8˝-foot-tall bronze monument featuring a goat-headed Satan will be unveiled at a secret, ticketed event in Detroit after the owner of a popular restaurant and entertainment complex backed out and opponents issued threats, organizers said.</p>
<p>The 1˝-ton Baphomet, which is backed by an inverted pentagram and flanked by statues of two young children gazing up at the creature, shows Satan with horns, hooves, wings and a beard.</p>

Gilda Jacobs, president and CEO of Michigan League for Public Policy, is against eliminating the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit so that money can be used to fix the roads. The Detroit Free Press reported that Jacobs said using the EITC to free up money for roads is like "trying to fill the Grand Canyon with a bucket of sand." ForTheRecord says: The state’s version of the Earned Income Tax Credit will cost the state budget $118 million in the upcoming fiscal year. That’s 10 percent of the road funding target. A bucket of sand that is roughly 10 percent...

In 2012, teachers in the Roscommon area school district became the first in decades to "decertify" the Michigan Education Association — fire it — and start their own independent union. Now, three years later, the president of the startup local, called the Roscommon Teachers Association, said 64 of 65 eligible teachers have voluntarily paid dues as of the recently completed school year. It probably didn't hurt that the union's $500 dues are about half the amount charged by the MEA, the state's largest teachers union. “Roscommon teachers show that voluntary unionism can thrive if the union is proving its worth...

<p>A 23-year-old man who told police he entered the United States illegally from Mexico has been arrested in connection with the kidnapping and sexual assault of a 13-year-old Florida girl.</p>
<p>The Van Buren County sheriff's office in southwestern Michigan says Aurelio Hernandez-Gomez was arraigned Friday in South Haven.</p>

Ted Nugent and Kid Rock have teamed up to record a song in support of the Confederate flag. The song, titled “Kiss My Rebel Ass,” was reportedly written and recorded in the space of a day after Nugent, seeing that Kid Rock had invited anyone protesting his use of the flag at his concerts to “kiss my ass,” reached out to express his support via text message. “When you get a text from the Nuge, you know you’ve done something right,” laughed Rock during a joint appearance the two made on WWJ Newsradio 950. Added Nugent, “Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t...

Someone has to step up once the Prancing Horse is spun off.Sergio Marchionne has done a great job reviving Chrysler, Fiat and with the FCA group as a whole, but if his latest gambit works he will go down as legend in the auto industry. Last year we reported that FCA was planning to spin off Ferrari to grab some cash. The majority of the company (80 percent) would be owned by FCA shareholders so the company would still wield a lot of power over Ferrari. That being said Marchionne needs a new brand to fill the Prancing Horse’s shoes,...

MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI – An Indiana resident called an "illegal immigrant" on court documents has been charged with sexually groping two 17-year-old girls on the Fourth of July in a Michigan's Adventure wave pool. Eliazar Rivas-Rodriguez, 29, of Middlebury, Indiana, was arraigned Tuesday, July 7, on two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct involving force or coercion. The arraignment was conducted through a Spanish-speaking interpreter, according to court records.

The Detroit Police Department is suffering from its worst manpower shortage in nearly a century. There are currently fewer officers patrolling the city than at any time since the 1920s. At one point, the Detroit police force was over 5,000. Today, the force is just 1,590 officers strong — and not all of those are on the street. The city has lost nearly half its patrol officers since 2000 and ranks have shrunk by 37 percent in the past three years alone, according to the Detroit News. It’s so bad that precincts are reportedly left with only one squad car...

JACKSON, MI – A Modern Waste Services employee involved in an incident where a dog was killed no longer works for the company. The owner of the garbage service, Phil Duckham, said the employee was terminated Tuesday afternoon. Duckham said he wanted to meet with the former employee in person before making a decision on how to handle the fatal Monday night shooting of a 9-year-old Rottweiler-Labrador mix. "This isn't how we do business," Duckham said. "I wanted to hear both sides of the story, and we don't condone damaging people's property. ... It's a service we give and it's...